Saturday, January 20, 2007

Hot tempered Shannon will take the book Authentic Happiness out of context for her topic "Is surviving fetushood good enough credentials for feminism?". In his book, Authentic Happiness, Seligman basically says this "True happiness is achieved by using one's signature strengths in activities that produce flow and gratification in life. The idea that one can be happy just by following hendoistic pleasure is total bunk. Also I'm super cool and I defeated behaviorism with my big penis. My kids are amazing due to my great psychology". Well, we don't have large penises here where we can defeat behaviorism nor do we have kids that are amazing due to our great psychology abilities, so we'll just use the first part.

How does this apply to feminism? Well, I'm going to make up a connection using my talents at connecting two things that don't go together. Many people wonder why doing exactly what they were doing doesn't get them praised as wonderful feminists. Why, they wonder, do people not see how great a feminist they are for existing? My theory is that praise no matter what you do doesn't do well in a social movement.

If we just say feminist is merely being supportive of women's choices, well, what can we do (as we are bound by integrity) if women choose to make confederate flag pillows, lop off the clits of other women, tell other women that if you get an abortiion, you're a dirty whore who will die of breast cancer?

Not everything a woman does is towards the cause of greater justice or more equality.. I think virtues such as justice or equality should be the measure of feminism. I think that if we base our feminism on such values, our confidence in ourselves as feminists will grow. We won't have to ask others if we are good feminists or not, because we'll know because of our work and the strength we have gained through it.

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